Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
WELLS
On a sunny afternoon, Wells sat on the floor of the nursery, wrenching together crib parts.
Allison sat across the room, putting together shelves. They’d picked out furniture for the nursery together that morning. He’d insisted that he wanted her opinion. She hadn’t believed him.
Which, you know what? Fair. That was on him.
But she did have impeccable taste when she allowed herself to buy what she actually liked.
He stole a glance at her while she worked. The afternoon sun streamed in, shining golden on her hair. She’d wrapped it up in a Rosie the Riveter-style bandana and wore the overalls he loved with a tank top.
He didn’t like the idea of her and the baby being a hundred feet away at her cottage while she was recovering after the birth. They’d argued about it all the way from the baby food aisle to the crib aisle that morning.
He looked around the blank, white walls. He wanted this to feel warmer, cozier. “What wall color are you planning for your nursery?”
Allison stopped and pushed on her lower back with a dreamy smile. “A soothing sage green, I think,” she said, leaning back on one hand, rubbing her belly with the other. “It seems calming, and nicely gender neutral.”
He nodded as he continued to ratchet, playing it cool. “That’s fine for here, too,” he said offhandedly.
“I figured you’d want power red,” she said with a laugh. “Have her arguing court cases with conviction before bedtime.”
Wells snorted, imagining the chaos. “The last thing I want is to teach our child how to argue more effectively. I have a feeling she’ll be a natural.”
Allison’s peal of laughter bounced around the empty room and landed somewhere in his chest.
It felt warm, like sunshine.
He shrugged, trying to look unaffected. “I like the idea that she’ll have continuity between our houses. Like her room is always a safe place.”
“Aw,” Allison said with a sentimental, pouting smile. “I love that.”
“Yeah?” he said shyly.
“It’s really thoughtful,” she said offhandedly, going back to her bookcase.
Thoughtful.
Not a word most people used to describe him, but it was everything he never knew he needed.
His eyes lingered on her, her long legs and cute ankles and feet sprawled out in front of her.
Last night, she’d complained she couldn’t reach her toenails to paint them.
He’d gotten the bright egg-yolk-orange nail polish all over his fingers as he painted them. She’d teased him endlessly, but he didn’t mind.
She wiggled her feet back and forth happily as she pieced the bookshelves together, and he traced the movement of his handiwork with his gaze, proud of himself.
He slyly took a quick photo of her looking adorable in the afternoon sunbeams, wanting to keep this moment with him long after their baby was grown.
Hours later, they lay together on the couch after a long day of assembling furniture.
This could continue, he thought, rubbing her feet while she knit on the couch to the dulcet Yorkshire accents talking about a gruesome murder in a tiny English village on his TV.
Why not have her stay here while she recovered from having the baby? Why not have her stay here while they tried for baby number two?
Why not have her stay here…
...period?
He pictured their life together, and somehow it expanded every day. Teasing her endlessly and seeing her adorable, indignant jaw drop open.
Her climbing over him and them starting on baby number two on the couch.
“Could you hand me the blanket from the basket?” she asked, not looking up from her knitting.
Baskets. Endless baskets. Another part of life he’d apparently been missing before she’d moved in.
He leaned under the coffee table to grab the soft floral blanket he’d given her for period pain months ago and barked out a laugh as his hand landed on a hard, cold surface.
Two ceramic kittens were playing with a ball of yarn on top of the blanket. “Okay, now I know this one is new.”
He tossed the blanket at her as she laughed with those sparkling eyes of hers.
“I like it when you do that,” he said, looking at the TV and not at her.
“Trick you?” She said with a happy look.
“Nah, when you sparkle. The world…it needs your sparkle,” he said, and could feel her eyes on him.
She looked at him with a curious expression, as if no one had told her that.
He gulped, needing to pivot this back to safer territory. He held the corner of the blanket up. “You know we could always raise the temperature up past sixty-two?” he teased.
“Don’t you dare. I’m sweltering everywhere else I go.” She sighed as she tugged the blanket onto her lap, the moment now over.
He saw his opening to revisit their earlier disagreement.
“You could get A/C up to your eyeballs if you stayed until you’re fully recovered postpartum.”
She scoffed but snuggled down into the couch. “You couldn’t stand living with me that long. By then there would be decorative candles everywhere, feminist needlepoint on the wall.”
He snorted. “This isn’t my first rodeo living with a woman. Admit it; it’s been better here.”
She sighed, looking up at the ceiling with a forlorn expression.
Aha. Victory is mine.
“This would have been excruciating without you,” she admitted, picking at the blanket. “Almost seven months pregnant in a sweltering cottage with A/C that ran only half the time, going up and down steep stairs.”
“Sounds like,” he said in a teasing voice, grabbing her hand that nervously picked at her nail, “you should agree to stay.”
She finally met his eyes, and there was a softness there. Something beyond teasing and flirting and arguing. She threaded her fingers through his.
He squeezed her hand, wanting whatever was on the other side of her concerns.
Share them with me.
She bit the inside of her cheek. “What happened with Skylar?”
Shit.
He sucked in a breath. Should have known that was coming after the earlier slip of living with a woman. “Fell out of love, the end.”
“Wells.”
“Allison,” he said, matching her I’m being serious tone.
“You never talk about her,” she said, her eyes sad.
Wells flopped back, running a hand through his hair as he figured out how to explain it.
“Because I don’t want to think about how I trusted her and how she betrayed me. How embarrassing it all was.” So embarrassing. He’d lived with his heart on his sleeve until he was twenty years old and had learned one hard, very public lesson.
“Then for over a decade, up close and personal, I saw people who were happy—really happy—turn bitter, hateful. You know how it can be,” he said, his eyes finally finding hers.
She nodded reluctantly.
“You were so young. You must have really loved her,” Allison said warmly.
Wells bit his lip. It was an old bruise that he forgot about most of the time, but it was still there. “I did. To get married at eighteen? It felt over the top. Ridiculous—”
“Not at all like you,” she said with a knowing smile as the tips of their fingers teased each other.
He yanked her feet closer to him and she laughed, sliding down the couch. He slid his hands up and down her calves.
She snuggled in, staring up at him without judgment. “It’s romantic, getting married that young,” she said with a sad smile. “I bet you were a romantic.”
His eyes slid to hers with a heart-pounding gulp.
So she’d discovered his secret, then.
No one had gotten close enough to the guarded castle of his heart to know it in almost twenty years.
Not since he’d sobbed in the rain like a cliche after finding his wife of two years with someone else. Not yet even twenty-one years old.
He rolled his eyes at himself. It had been stupid and impulsive and yes, romantic, in its own way. He and Skylar had felt like soulmates when she’d moved to town. The same two odd ducks in a small town where he hadn’t always fit.
She’d lost interest once they’d left Fairwick Falls for college and she found other, more impressive people to be with. He hardly blamed her these days, but at the time, his heart had been obliterated. He’d been so embarrassed. The first big crazy idea to blow up in his face.
“Maybe still are a romantic, under all that scar tissue,” Allison said quietly, her fingers threading through his.
He slowly smiled at her beautiful face, feeling wistful. Some idiot gave all this up.
“It would be hard to believe how much of a fool your ex-husband was,” he said suddenly, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. “But luckily, I have firsthand experience.”
She snuggled against his palm with a quiet smile, and he allowed his thumb to trace the curve of her cheek.
“I wanted him to divorce you so badly,” Wells whispered, running the backs of his fingers along her jaw. “No one should ever be cheated on. But you—” He pulled back, trying to hide his feelings. “You especially deserved more.”
Dawning realization colored her face.
Oh no.
He’d never admit it—not under oath, not to Allison, not to any grandchildren they might have—but he’d protected her the best he could without drawing suspicion.
Didn’t take everything, though he could have.
He’d convinced Keith that he wouldn’t want the flower shop, the one thing Allison was left with after the divorce.
“You should get back to your murder.” He nodded to the TV. “You’re missing the vicar.”
“All this time”—she shook her head in wonder—“you were a nice, romantic guy.”
Wells shifted, uncomfortable with just how correct she was. “No, you know me. Cold, calculating. Hell, Styles, I conned you at a charity event.”
Allison slowly smiled, as if she saw right into the deepest parts of him anyway.
“Not everyone is her,” Allison said, her face full of warmth and concern. “The nice clients you represented weren’t her.”
“No, everyone isn’t her.” He interlaced their fingers again, not wanting to meet her eyes, stroking his thumb over her fingers. “Some people are selfless, and hardworking. Kind.”
Wells’s heart thumped so hard in his chest she could probably hear it.
“So kind it makes you want to cry,” he whispered. “Because you worry what the world might do to somebody like that.”
He kissed her knuckles slowly, finally meeting her eyes. “Sometimes you want to protect those people, so they don’t have to fight every battle by themselves.”
A tear slowly slid over her temple into her hairline, and she wiped it away quickly. He’d rather have kissed it away.
“Oh.” She held her stomach suddenly. “It’s happening,” she said with a shocked smile. She pulled their hands to the lower part of her stomach, under the blanket and her tank top.
His hands smoothed over her skin, feeling the small, random movements. “She’s kicking,” Wells said with an astonished laugh. He’d missed it every other time.
Allison shifted. “I have a feeling she’s going to have your long legs,” she said through a squirming breath.
His baby was kicking him.
Had there ever been anything more miraculous?
The small movement was barely noticeable, but it was there. And that was all that mattered.
“Thank you,” he whispered through a wave of unexpected emotion. “For all of this. For everything.”
The most miraculous experiences of his life had been in the last four weeks with this woman.
He needed to do something special for her.
Something maybe just a little over the top.
Something decidedly not romantic, he thought, trying to cover his tracks, even as he leaned down to place a sentimental kiss on her stomach.
ALLISON
Week 28: Your baby is the size of two baby shower invites
Allison rubbed her stomach, soothing herself. She stared across the kitchen table at her parents’ house and slid over an envelope. “The baby shower is in two weeks, and I’d love it if you could come.”
She’d rehearsed it endlessly in the mirror. Firm, polite, no apologies.
“That’s not a lot of time, Allison,” her mother blustered, opening up the envelope.
She’d debated whether to even include them. She’d stepped away from being so involved in their lives the last few months, busy trying to put herself first, for a change—the craziness with navigating pregnancy symptoms, the situation with Wells.
It had only been four months since she’d told them she was pregnant, but it had felt like a lifetime of distance.
For the first time in her life, she wasn’t tensing up trying to handle their emotions. Wasn’t trying to make them feel better or fix something that might go wrong.
She’d been strength training for months by being around Wells who made her focus on herself. Who made her ask for what she wanted without making her feel bad.
“You want a crib or something from us, right?” Her dad smirked as if he’d cornered her, had figured out why she was really there.
“You’re invited if you can say nice things,” she said back to her father confidently, placing her hand on her belly.
Somewhere in the last few weeks as her bump had filled out, she’d realized she was a goddamn grown-up. She was going to be someone’s mom, and no one could tell her shit.
She wasn’t scared of the two people across the table from her anymore. The worst had happened—they’d been disappointed in her choices and had stopped reaching out to her.
Not that they had ever reached out much anyway. It had always been her responsibility to call them.
Her whole life had been architected so that it would make her parents happy, and doing that hadn’t worked. They’d still been disappointed.
And look at me now, happier than ever.
It turned out she needed to be a little bit more self-centered than the world had led her to believe.
People who cared about you wanted you to put yourself first.
People who loved you were happy when you were happy.
Simple enough ideas, but it had taken the last six months for it to sink in.
“If you, however,” Allison continued, “are not able to say kind things, you will not see your grandchild. Ever.”
She didn’t couch her statements delicately, apologize, or ask if she could help them.
Her dad left the table without another word.
She was disappointed but not surprised.
She calmly turned to her mom, waiting for a response. Her mother looked at the invitation and set it down primly.
“Now he’ll be in a mood all day,” her mother said, shaking her head at Allison. All your fault, it said.
“That sounds hard,” Allison said with a warm smile, trying out a new balance of empathy and detachment. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. I hope to see you at the baby shower at Bloom.”
“Is that what Wells needed the chair for?”
“Wells?” Allison said, confused. “He was here?”
“I don’t know.” Her mother shrugged, looking overly flabbergasted at her simple question. “He needed something from the house, and I said you’d always liked the wingback chair in the basement, so I sent it with him.”
Allison rubbed her stomach, now a certified rounded bump.
What on earth was he planning?